A Little Reminder
by justareader13
Summary: Bad memories come more frequently but then she comes.


Of all the things he's remembered, she's a surprise. He's been expecting all doom and gloom with a minute ray of sunshine in the form of a memory of Steve or one of his childhood in general or of his mother and sister with whom he could feel he was close to. The rest of the memories are of missions he's done, targets he's taken down and people he's killed. The memories of World War II before he became the Winter Soldier aren't much easier to deal with and neither are the memories of being tortured and wiped clean before he was put on ice once again. Bad memories come more frequently but then she comes.

He dreams of her in colors flashing through his subconscious like a rainbow. Flashes of red come through first. He sees her red hair falling over her face and whipping through the wind. He remembers that it shone in moonlight when she danced outside late at night or when they sparred after hours. He sees her red hair in a red room with red on both their hands and in their ledgers.

He dreams of her in white next. He feels her milky white skin under his hands. He can see his metal arm caressing it, inducing shivers and goosebumps all over her body. He can see the white of her teeth as she smiled widely at something he said. He couldn't for the life of him what it was but it had made her smile widely and brightly at him enough to put the sun to shame and it had made him want her all for himself even more. Her ballet uniform was an ivory white portraying innocence long since beaten out of her for the most part. Their handlers wanted her to play up the part of naive prima ballerina so as to get in with the politicians and business men looking for a young woman to turn into their mistress.

Green comes through next, more specifically her green eyes penetrating his and always coming back to him no matter where he was in the room. He could feel her watching him that first time they were ever in a room together so she could assess his threat level. He felt a swell of interest in her as he watched her always keep him within her line of vision so when he attacked the group of widows and soldiers-in-training without warning she was the only one ready to take him on even though she didn't win. She watched him walk away all the time. He could always feel her gaze burning into his back or feel her watching him from across a room as they pretended they didn't know each other in more ways than just the biblical sense. He liked it.

He liked knowing that she saw him, really saw him. Others only saw his metal arm and then did their best to steer clear of him or they only saw his reputation, his title as Winter Soldier and that was enough for them to decide not to ever speak to him or look at him for too long. They would rather do their best to pretend he wasn't there at all until they needed him to do something for them. She didn't do that, she saw him, she watched him. She watched them take him away from her in more ways than one, ripping him from her arms and ripping her from his head. But those green eyes, the way they looked at him, made him feel this strange sensation like he was falling off the edge into something dangerous but he wanted to fall all the same.

He sees her in black next. She usually wore black on their missions together. Whether it was a skin tight black leather outfit or a black evening gown, he always took a few moments to study her every time. She was beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful thing he ever saw. He first met her when she was 13 and they were in the red room. He trained her for a short while, no more than six months, before he was put back on ice. When he saw her again it was 4 years later and she was 17 and he was put to use as her trainer once again. He first kissed her when she was 19 and then he was put on ice again. They first went to bed together when she was 21 and she had been assigned his partner, he managed to stay awake for another 2 years after that. However, despite their relationship she floored him anytime he saw her face because in the ten years they knew each other, from the first time he trained her when she was 13 until they were separated when she was 23, he didn't get to see her as much as he wanted. He hoarded on time as much as he could so he could lay with her in his arms and him in hers at night and wake up to her in the morning but he usually woke up to her in blackness because morning is too risky.

His bedroom was black, so dark and black your eyes could barely adjust. The only light he gets is on the nights that she slips in and curls up beside him. Even when they're not having sex she made him feel human even though he wasn't always entirely convinced he was. The way others reacted to him convinced him more and more he wasn't human, that he truly was the machine the whispers about him claimed he was. The metal arm didn't help matters in his identity crisis. But being the amazing woman she was, she took every effort to make sure he knew that he was human.

He sees her in pink next. Pink splashed across her cheeks as she blushed one of her rare blushes at him after declaring that it was his birthday. He could remember no time in his life when he ever celebrated a birthday, though he did have dreams about a skinny blonde kid (no, a man who was so small he could be easily mistake for a child) handing him a wrapped box with a smile but he wrote that off partly because the thought of being compromised further than he already was by having feelings for her scared him and partly because the memory nudged some deeper part of him and it hurt to think about it. She had blushed after he stared at her dubiously and told him that she snuck into the secure lab and looked up his files. He had been upset with her at first because he didn't want her to be hurt because of him but then she handed him a little wrapped package. It contained a simple metal bracelet with a name panel on it which read the name James. She had told him it was his name, his real name, and had been very pleased that it furthered her theory that he was not Russian even if he was Soviet made. He had never known what his name was before that. Names were to be earned in the red room but despite how pleased his handlers were with his unbroken streak of success on his missions they never called him by his name, they always stuck with Winter Soldier, or just Soldier or referred to him in conversation as The Asset. From that day on she started calling him James and that's when he remembered what the mystery woman's name was, Natalia Romanova. That's also the first time he sees her face fully and he's shocked.

The incident on the bridge was one of his first recovered memories seeing as how it was so recent and he remembers fighting Steve and Sam and the woman with red hair. Steve and Sam tell him her name is Natasha Romanoff, that she was a former SHIELD agent and she was off on her own adventures. They had her to thank for pointing them in his direction and giving them his file. He looks her up on the internet at a computer cafe. It's relatively easy to get information on her off the internet and on television after SHIELD dumped all their dirty secrets online. Just looking through her files he knew it wasn't everything. There was some mentions of him crossed referenced in her files. Apparently he shot her in Odessa, he vaguely recalled that. It was still hazy. There was some mention of him training her in the red room and them being partners until he was put back in cryo and she had her memories wiped and she was put on ice as well before she was let out and eventually defected. She ran away and worked as a mercenary before SHIELD picked her up. Obviously there was no mention of why he was put back and no reason given for why she was wiped and frozen either. It didn't matter anyway, he knew the real reason.

He wanted to go out and find her, get answers from her and possibly see if she remembered him at all seeing as how they took those memories from her too but he wasn't exactly in the right mindset for that. Sam was helping him and so was Bruce. Steve got Tony Stark to let him stay at the Avengers Tower and he and Steve were slowly getting some semblance of a friendship back. Besides the archer, Barton, had said Natasha would come when she felt like it and it was no use trying to find her because she didn't want to be found. He knew he was right, he taught her afterall and he taught her well. She was his best student, the greatest success of the red room and their worst mistake.

So he doesn't seek her out. He stays at the Tower and dreams of her, remembers her. He tells Sam his memories of her. Partly because Sam has been helping him through his PTSD and he could give him more objective advice, partly in a bid to grow close to someone who doesn't expect too much from him and partly because he wants it to be different from before. He wants someone else to know, someone he can trust and he does trust Sam, the guy is just a trustworthy person. The thing is he's not suspicious of the Avengers anymore and the urge to kill them comes less and less everyday but he still doesn't know who he is. He doesn't feel like he's completely Steve's Bucky despite the fact he lets them call him the ridiculous nickname, he also doesn't feel completely like Natalia's James despite the fact he eagerly awaits her return and is always much more at peace with the ghosts in his head whenever he remembers something else about his time with her but he's also not completely the Winter Soldier anymore, he won't ever be that again. In order to make sure he doesn't become that he needs to tell Sam. He needs someone else to know about the only time since he fell off that train that he was his most human. Sam is surprised that he opens up about it but is less surprised that Natasha knew him even though she never said. He knows no one will ever know all of her secrets, not even Clint.

When she does come back it's because the Avengers must fight against Dr. Strange. Bucky is tentatively a member of the team and things are so busy that he and Natasha only get to see each other with other people around. However, he feels the familiar sensation of her eyes on his back whenever he walks away and the familiarity of it warms some shut away part of him. Then he is triggered by some HYDRA agents on Strange's side. One word and he reverted to the Winter Soldier in a second, he could add sleeper agent to the list now. Steve and Natasha have to fight him in order to stop him after he attacks Tony. It was a major setback and made him feel like despite all his supposed progress, he wasn't really ever free. His nightmares get more intense and he starts getting the urge to rip every Avenger apart again. He's antsy and in need of a release but Steve doesn't want him in the final battle, says he would be a distraction. Steve wouldn't watch his own back or the other Avengers' because he'd be too worried over Bucky and he might have new triggers now that they don't know about. He reluctantly agrees to stay behind to protect the others but that doesn't mean he's happy about it.

He's beating a punching bag to shreds when they finally are alone without trying to kill each other for the first time in ages. She makes noise behind him so he knows she's approaching.

"Geez, what did it do to you?" She asks with amusement.

"I'm picturing Strange's face or maybe it's Steve's face. Jury's out." He replies before his metal arm goes through it creating a hole that makes all the sand inside begin pouring out.

"Well, I don't know about Steve and Strange but that punching bag will certainly feel that in the morning." He pulls his arm out of the hole and instead of putting up a new bag he walks towards the couch, sits down, takes off his leather gloves and grabs his water bottle to take a long drink. He would've been more appreciative of this moment alone if he wasn't so ticked off.

"You know you shouldn't be mad at Steve, he just wants you to be safe."

"He's not my keeper." He grumbles back.

"From what I've heard you guys have been looking out for each other for a long time, I don't think that's going to change now or any time soon." She replied. He sighed knowing that was true. He could vividly remember saving Steve from the multiple fights he always got into. Walking down a street with Steve before the serum was like walking a small dog with aggression issues. Plus, he was sick a lot and Bucky had always felt responsible for him so he took care of him and nursed him back to health. Steve figured it was his turn to return the favor despite Bucky's protests that he had a penance to pay, Steve was having none of that.

_The stubborn fool._ Bucky thought but even he could hear the affection within the jab and it prompted another sigh from him.

"I'm not mad at him." He informed her, looking down at the floor.

"The punching bag tells another story." She replied in jest, sitting down next to him.

"He wants me to stay here and protect the others. Jane, Pepper, Betty and Darcy are important to them."

"If anyone can protect them successfully you can. You don't fail on your missions." She said with all the confidence in the world clear in her voice.

"Yeah, I haven't had very much experience protecting people the last few decades. If I had a mission it usually ended in my target being dead. I shot Steve and nearly killed him, I shot you twice, I tried to kill Sam, I nearly killed Fury, it's a possibility I killed Howard and his wife, I attacked Tony-"

"That wasn't you, not really, that was HYDRA and what they made you into. You protected Steve and you care about these people even though you think you shouldn't, you'll be fine. Steve and the others trust you. _You_, the real you, is a good man James." He scoffed at that, thinking back on all the things he's done. He spent longer as a brainwashed assassin then he did as a war hero and he hadn't done good things during that time. Natasha was the only good thing he had and he wasn't delusional, it wasn't like she didn't have blood on her hands as well though perhaps not as much as he did. Even as Sergeant Barnes he had done things he wasn't proud of. He hadn't been a good man in a long time despite the fact that he wanted to be.

"_**Ne sovsem, net****.**_" (Not really, no). He answered her in Russian before looking at her straight in the eyes for the first time.

"**_No ty yedinstvennyy kto ponimayet chto, Natal'ya_**." (But you're the only one who understands that, Natalia). She quirked a small smile at him before her attention was drawn to a device in her ear.

"I'm on my way, Clint."

"Good luck, I guess." He said to her as she stood up.

"You'll be fine, James. You can do this… _**ya doveryayu tebe**_." (I trust you.) He looked up at her, nodded and watched her turn to walk away. He looked down twiddling with a loose thread on his sweat pants, he didn't want to watch her walk away. Despite the fact that he enjoyed knowing she had watched him walk away he didn't like watching her do it. It brought back the anxiety he had always felt whenever she was away from him that something horrible would happen to her.

"James." He heard Natalia say. He looked up just in time for her to grab his face and press her lips to his. The kiss brought back to his mind all the kisses they had shared before in hotel rooms and alleyways, in his "room" and in dark hallways late at night after clandestine meetings. Her lips were just as soft and inviting and healing as he remembered and he couldn't help but begin to sink into the kiss. Before he could really do anything else she pulled away leaving him breathless and dazed. One of the deadliest assassins in history and she had him floored with a kiss that realistically didn't last longer than 10 seconds, if that.

"Just a little something to let you know I haven't forgotten either, Loverboy." She said to him as she walked away, not once looking back. He watched her this time, his eyes not straying from her as she pressed the elevator button. It opened immediately and she walked inside, pressed the floor button she wanted and then turned and smiled at him as the doors closed. He pressed his metal fingers to his lips softly, feeling a well-known warm tingling sensation lingering upon them as his mind feverishly cataloged every nuance and millisecond of the kiss. He felt his lips twitching as he tried to gain control of himself and slip on an expressionless facade for the ladies upstairs but his lips won the battle and before he knew it a Bucky Barnes worthy grin was spread across his mouth. It was an unbridled and unburdened smile born of knowing that the woman who made him feel human so long ago, the one who he was punished for loving, did remember what they had meant to each other and she might still love him despite the fact he wasn't exactly the same but neither was she and maybe in a way that made it better, maybe this time around they had a real chance.

Bucky stood up feeling like his spine was straighter. The Avengers trust him, Steve trusts him, Natalia trusts him and she had said it herself, The Winter Soldier never failed a mission, he wasn't going to start now.


End file.
